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strong>Aug. 24, p4

The government has issued a new regulation on abortion, Regulation No. 61/2014, based on the 2009 Health Law. In terms of content, the new regulation on abortion contains no new policy. Abortion in Indonesia remains prohibited in most cases, unless the mother'€™s life is in danger or in the case of rape. (By Shela Putri Sundawa, Jakarta)

Your comments:

Some time ago during my wife'€™s hysterectomy surgery, I was called into the operating room and asked to give permission for continuing the procedure. This was needed by the doctors because it would affect her reproductive ability. I was dumbfounded.

Bali

Legalize abortion now and we will see more and more of our young generations involved in free sex without the fear of the children that they would bear.

Top

Thank you for writing this. We need more people to stand up for their abortion rights in Indonesia.

Walton Kate

It is a brave and much-needed piece. Retaining in her womb a tiny piece of jelly that no more resembles a person than an individual sperm should be at the discretion of the woman. An even greater advance would be to fast-track research on non-permanent contraception for men, despite the hypocritical opposition of feminists.

Refly T

If the issue of abortion is still focusing on moral debate rather than the health problems of women and children, then the prohibition of abortion will certainly face a long wait before it may possibly be withdrawn by authorities.

If pro-choice movement activists keep talking about the implicit right that women must have to determine their own causes independently, then the conservative bigots will immediately erupt and confront the idea as a lifestyle peril and, of course, as usually happens, they won'€™t forget to back up the argument with citations they derived from the heavenly book.

Though, if the situation is so, then permission from the government to legalize abortion would be like a dream in broad daylight.

Titoyo

This writer seems to think that abortion should be legalized across the board and include '€œOops, I'€™m pregnant'€ scenarios. I agree that abortion should be legalized, but with supervision as to why women are getting them. The best thing would be to reduce the number of those who may fall into the unwanted pregnancy group.

First off, sex education needs a dramatic change in Indonesia. It needs to be blunt with no sugar coating or religious inferences. Boys and girls need to know what happens when that thing goes into this thing. What happens when this fluid comes in contact with that area?

They need to know the consequences of mating. Once they learn what happens and all the different ways it can happen, they need to learn how to protect themselves from not only unwanted pregnancies but also sexually transmitted infections (STIs). With education, the number of abortions would go down. Unfortunately, this is a society that keeps sex education under the rug. Sex education is taught in a structured way that only serves its teachers and not the students.

For those that think contraception brings about sexual revolution, you are greatly misinformed. You think that the sexual revolution was about more having sex; no, it was about more openness in society. One could actually speak about it without lowering their eyes.

X Simaging

Legalizing abortion might be a good way to better the health of people in Indonesia because although abortion is an illegal thing, the number of abortions keeps rising. But don'€™t you think that the number of abortions would double or even triple if it was legalized? More people would have sex without being married as they wouldn'€™t worry about anything because they would know that abortion was legal.

Sien Sien Kho